I discovered today pyexiv2, which is a Python interface to the infamous Exiv2, a GPL library to read and write Exif and IPTC/IIM metadata from JPEG and various camera RAW file. Too bad I can't reuse the exiv2 code in libopenraw as it is GPL and not LGPL.[1]

pyexiv2 is actually an exemple on how easy it is to write Python module in C++ using Boost.Python

Notes

[1] The decision to use LGPL for libopenraw is in complete relation to the policies from both Gnome and KDE when it come to libraries, and nothing else.

Last week-end (or maybe the one before, I keep delaying this post), for Victoria day, we took the train to Montréal. It was actually a meetup of Range Finder Forums members.

Without order, occurred during the week-end:

watched the Sens winning to get to the finals of the Stanley Cup. They play starting this Monday against Anaheim's Duck This happened at Hurley's.

tried out the Epson RD-1, a digital rangefinder camera. Unfortunately I don't have the pictures as I didn't have my SD cards with me... Too bad this camera is expensive, still less than the Leica M8, but still.

tried out a Bessa R2 rangefinder at marché Jean-Talon. For this one I have the film, but I have yet to get it processed.

had a shoot with models. More about that later. Two fact: the EF 50mm f/1.4 USM is one of my favorite lenses (I ended up shooting most of the week-end with it), and I need to get a decent light meter for proper incident light metering.

discovered a few places on Saint-Denis: La Baroufe, Le Passeport (a gothic night club, that turns back into a clothing shop during the day) and l'Académie, a very nice apportez-votre vin[1] restaurant, located next to a SAQ[2] that close at 10:00PM[3]

I really miss living in that city. I felt that last time when attending LGM, this time just confirmed it. I miss walking down Sainte-Catherine with people in the street, in the evening or on week-ends, I miss the Metro.

Let's talk about changes. When I left they were starting to tear down the building that was hiding Saint-James-United church. Now the front of the church is free, visible. Here is what that give at dusk, from the street:

taken with an EF 50mm f1.4 USM, 1/160 f/2.5 @1600 ISO

Before that, I could only photograph this from the inside, like this, with very little distance:

taken with an EF 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 USM, 1/125 f/3.5 @400 ISO

I'll go further in depth for the pictures, but the workflow for digital photography on Linux is still pretty steep...

Tone-mapping HDR photos with Qtpfsgui. HDR is one of these new techinque that give incredible results. It is way easier on digital than with traditionnal printing in B&W... (that's what masking in the darkroom helped achieve)

I'm not sure how much it will deviate from upstream as fixes needs to be. I'll do my best to push the changes upstream.

It needs a sane API. The APIs are not bad but the are not really designed for dynamic linking as they are based on C++ templates. Templates are not inherently bad, but passing them through dynamic linkage like that is not really a good idea, and worse, it is not language neutral. I'll make some nice C API inspired by what I did in Exempi.

This conference has been extremely interesting. Scribus, Inkscape, The Gimp, hugin (and friends), Krita where amongst these tools that users really like. I'm still impressed seeing jimmac demoing how to use Inkscape. I tried to do the same I completely got lost ; and I'm passing on Gimping too. At least I got a book "Gimp 2 Efficace" (in French) to learn more. Thanks to the conference sponsor.

On the developer side, GEGL looks yummy. For now, I'm actually thinking letting it demosaic the Bayer CFA extracted from RAW file to concentrate on the other features. After all most applications are likely to be willing to provide their own (which is already part of the spec), so why bothering.

Krita looks very interesting, and to the question "Will it provide Corel Painter features?" the answer is "yes". See Boud's post.

Also amazing is how John Bintz and MenTaLguY show us their work flow to draw comics using Free Software on Linux. This involve Sane, Inkscape and some programming language for the automation to generate the final work.

I'm sure you didn't miss Intel MID, Intel's answer to the wave of UMPC and Internet Tablet. It features Linux, Matchbox and Hildon, all glued together with a distribution based on the Chinese RedFlag. But the more interesting thing is that the core chipset is based on a Pentium M and GMA945, which is much more horse power than, say, the Nokia 800.

Now interesting challenge: while I'm sure it will be relatively easy to have AbiWord and Gnumeric running on it, like they already do on Maemo, but how about porting OpenOffice.org? Sure it will be contrived, but we have a 256MB of RAM, 500MB of storage and a 600-800MHz CPU based on a Pentium M (with half the cache on than the one found in laptops) which should be more than enough.